From high school assignment to the mainstage of The Q: Jade’s debut play opens this week

Posted on 5 March, 2024

How did you spend your gap year? Travelling the world? Working like crazy? Maybe getting a head start on university? How about starting a theatre company and directing your very own original play?

My story begins in Year Twelve, where, like a lot of young people, I was fighting a losing battle. I was teetering on the awkward cusp of adulthood, trying to define my place in the world, and of course, drowning in a mountain of assignments.

One such assignment was for drama. Over the course of a semester, I wrote, directed, and produced a play exploring the voice of young people in a world ravaged by climate destruction.

Fast forward a year, and that assignment has grown into a company, a professional season of Happy Meals, Happy Kids at The Q – Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, and a dream come true.

Happy Meals Happy Kids follows a group of friends desperately trying to finish their school project. Their task? Disprove government plans to eliminate organic matter and reclaim planet earth for mining production.

As their due date rapidly approaches, the group must devise a solution, the fate of their grades depends on it! But they’re never going to use this in real life, right?

As the first play of the 2024 Q The Locals season, I’m so proud to be bringing a youth voice to one of our best local stages. The Q’s program creates opportunities for emerging artists in the region to develop and stage their work in a professional atmosphere, and what better way to open the local season than an entirely youth-run show?

Yes! Students make up our cast, our creative team, each member contributing to a legacy of authentic and resonant youth theatre, a legacy to inspire the future generations of creatives.

I still remember the shows I saw as a kid. I can still feel the goosebumps rising from the first time I saw someone my own age take to the stage. I can recall the very moment I decided that one day, I would be up there too.

This representation is a beautiful thing, but what if this can expand beyond the stage, into a future where young people exist in every aspect of the arts landscape?

The play asks the age-old question, “What kind of world are we leaving behind for future generations?” Unfortunately, like a lot of youth theatre, it’s not adults taking action to secure that future but rather young people having to grow up too fast and answer that question for themselves.

As teenagers we are expected to grow up, but also act our age. Study hard for a big, bright future, but not dare to speak up when it comes to decisions regarding that future. We aim for the perfect high school career while juggling monumental global issues and constantly being overwhelmed by the injustices we experience but we can’t ever complain. Don’t forget to respect your elders! The characters begin as these very identifiable tropes, but as these issues start to come to light, we begin to truly understand the fragility of the teenage experience.

While the voice of youth is at the forefront of this production, the narrative is an urgent call to action for the adults in our world, an invitation to step into our shoes and begin a productive conversation about the trajectory of our inaction.

There’s a beautiful scene towards the end of the show where the characters call their parents, apologising for themselves, their flaws, their mistakes. It begins with “Hey Dad, I know we don’t usually do this. The whole talking thing”.

They spend the duration of the show having these really adult conversations, eloquently trying to solve all the world’s problems but at the end of the day, they are just kids who need their parents to sit down and listen.

It’s easy to tune out of these conversations. Easy for adults to retreat into the negative connotations of youth activism, and to think they know better.

Teenagers can be just as stubborn, but when we are ready and willing to begin this dialogue, not only with our minds but with our hearts, that is when we can accomplish real change.

Photography: Shelly Higgs